a new world hangs outside the window
beautiful and strange
it must be I've fallen awake
I must be

The dark mare inspected each and every leaf: the tentacles of their sometimes long and wispy fingers. The hollow chutes, and the flat but bristly bodies. Everything felt so strange and otherworldly here, so far from what Wasp knew as cozy and comfortable... and home. While the Peak mare had certainly come to enjoy the warm climate and having the sun at her back nearly at all daytime hours, its mystique was perhaps beginning to wane.

She gorged herself today, as she'd done every day since she arrived, until a strange scent came to her in the passing humid breeze. A light layer of sweat made her dark, though slightly sun-bleached, coat glisten against her movement. Salty beads of moisture pimpled the soft, bare skin of her muzzle and around her eyes. This scent was odd, and uniquely personal. She recognized it as feminine, and reminiscent of someone - or something - she had marked as familiar before.

Curious - an odd moment for the rather indifferent mare - she set out to investigate. Briefly she wondered if she'd end up finding Antiope again, that mare with the strange scar she'd met briefly at the beach. But instead, Wasp stumbled upon a scene she wasn't expecting in the least bit. By the time she saw her, through some level of brush, the stranger's child had been born.

Wasp couldn't help but feel guilty for peering in on such an intimate scene. But it explained the nodes she'd sniffed out before. A sense of nostalgia for the spring birthing season in the valley of the Peak raked at her heart. It made her homesick. She tossed her head twice to rid herself of the melancholy feeling and trudged on through the brush. She nickered once as not to startle the mare and child. Upon emerging, she hovered close to the foliage, giving them plenty of room.

"Sorry to barge in." She offered awkwardly. "I saw you... from afar.... Just wanted to make sure you were alright."

Her words were short and gruff, but the intent was indeed genuine, even if it was difficult to decipher in a deadpan face like Wasp's. Her amber eyes flitted to the tiny filly, who seemed bright and alert at her mother's side.

W A S P